Brotherhood of the Knife
of the Brotherhood of the Knife have been used to support Word Bearers operations across the galaxy since the time of the Horus Heresy.]] The Brotherhood of the Knife is a Chaos Cult that was raised by and supported the Word Bearers Traitor Legion. It is still used to provide light infantry support for the Heretic Astartes' military operations in the Long War against the Imperium of Man. The brotherhood was called Ushmetar Kaul in the ancient tongue of the Word Bearers' homeworld of Colchis, which translated literally into Low Gothic as "sharp edge by which false reality may be slit and pulled away to reveal god." Its cultists wore long robes, as if in parody of ancient monastic orders. Many bore ceremonial blades and other melee weapons, and the more senior wielded ritual weapons since classified under the general term Athame, fashioned of jagged stone or strangely alloyed iron. Such weapons were by unknown means specifically attuned to the realm of the Warp, so that every death they inflicted was an offering to feed the empyreal entities with which the cult was in communion, and by the act of killing, they sought to breach the barriers which separated the material realm from the Immaterium. The brotherhoods fought in close coordination with their Word Bearers masters, either serving as an expendable first wave or to clear entrenched foes by weight of numbers, butcher the wounded and round up prisoners for sacrifice. The brotherhood's cultists were also fearsome and skilled fighters, and while individual cultists were no match for a Space Marine, they had the advantage of numbers and were driven by their twisted creed to perform deeds beyond the endurance of mortal soldiers. History The Brotherhood of the Knife was first raised by the Word Bearers to provide cannon fodder support for their surprise assault upon the Ultramarines Legion in the Battle of Calth during the Horus Heresy. As with others of its kind, it was brought to the muster under the guise of second-line Excertus Imperialis Levy Auxilia, with an entry given to the muster as classification "Light Infantry/Terrestrial Sub-type/Feral-Feudal Regressive". The cult force was, it appears, organised into between 10-20 sub-sects, each at least 10,000 strong. The members of the Ushmetar Kaul had already gained something of a reputation as a most bloodthirsty and brutal fighting force alongside the Word Bearers during their later Imperial Compliance actions, and they were recorded as engaging in the most violent rites before, after and even during battle. It is believed that the Ushmetar Kaul proved itself a key component in the vast Chaos ritual to create the Ruinstorm of which the death of Calth was but the opening phase, its thousands-strong cohorts being deployed into the many cities and provinces across the surface of Calth, from Numinus to Talanko. With each death inflicted by the Ushmetar Kaul, the Primarch Lorgar's grand ritual on Calth was progressed an increment more, making the Brotherhood of the Knife as useful to the Word Bearers in an occult sense as it was in a military one. The brotherhood's cultists conducted several massed attacks on those Ultramarines defending strategic positions after the Word Bearers' initial attack, including the Ultramarines' 21st Company that was guarding the railway approach to Numinus City. Although its cultists were not well-disciplined, the brotherhood's numbers and suicidal tactics caused several grave casualties among the Ultramarines, weakening them in advance of the main assault launched by the World Bearers' Traitor Marines. During the fighting on Calth and elsewhere in Ultramar, the brotherhood was infamous for the sheer scale of the atrocities they committed against civilians. The excesses attributed to these forces -- particularly by the harrowing accounts of civilian survivors -- speak of the Brotherhood of the Knife fighting clad in rags soaked with the freshly-spilled blood of sacrificial victims, which were as likely to be drawn from their own ranks as from captured enemy combatants. Others had daubed arcane symbols on their skin with blood or had hair matted with clotted viscera; the by-products of mutilations and acts of furious cannibalism beyond the countenance of any sane mind. The Brotherhood of the Knife continued to exist in the years after the Heresy. Large numbers of brotherhood cultists were deployed by the Dark Cardinal Kor Phaeron to fight alongside the Word Bearers during the Talledus War in the Talledus System after the birth of the Great Rift. Sources *''Garro: Oath of Moment'' (Audio Book) by James Swallow, Tracks 3, 4, 9, 10 *''Know No Fear'' (Novel) by Dan Abnett, Ch. 6, pg. 77 *''The Horus Heresy'' (Artbook), pg. 162 (Image) *''The Horus Heresy: Book Five - Tempest'' (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pg. 142 *''Psychic Awakening: Faith and Fury'' (8th Edition), pp. 8-9 Category:Chaos Category:Chaos Cults Category:Chaos Space Marines Category:Word Bearers